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Illians
Background The lost men of Letum Frigus. They banded together behind Auric Ulvin for a chance to recover their lost dominance. It is said that when the Illians awake, the world sleeps; and when the world sleeps, the Illians awake. Features # Illians people are Winterborn. They have resistance to Cold and are suceptibile to Fire Damage, and they suffer no damage while Blizzards blows. However, catapults and naval units will suffer normally from Cold damages, so in the late game, when you will have spread frost everywhere, you will have to get used to half wretched mechanical units. # Illians are Agnostic and can not adopt any standard religion. In their peculiar way, Illians follow The White Hand Religion, that in the vanilla game is not reckoned as a regular religion (many MODs change that). Their units can anyhow learn and spread the Council of Esus Religion. # Without religions there is no way for the Illians to change alignment, they are stuck to Evil. # The Illian version of the Pagan Temple is the Temple of the Hand, that permanently changes every tiles in 2 radius from city in Ice. It is a bit more than the Fat Cross. # You can settle cities anywhere (e.g. Desert) and transform also desert tiles into Ice tiles that act as Grassland tiles only for the Illian Race. # Building the Temple of the Hand is a quick mean to start a city in the middle of a jungle: jungle will simply convert to Forest. The temporary Ice tiles obtained from Blizzards or Snowfalls have no effect. # Ice tiles act as grassland - that is, a worked Ice tile provides 2 like a Grassland tile. Since only you can get a benefit from Ice tiles, transforming your cities' land into Ice can discourage enemy conquests, as a captured Illian city on Ice produces no food and will quickly starve as your opponents cannot gain the 2 /Ice tile. Also conquer an enemy city and quicly build a Temple of the Hand before re reconquista is a nice aggressive move. #However grassland tiles normally give an extra +1 when adjacent to a River. Ice tiles do not give this extra bonus--this forces you to consider carefully if it is worth the loss in commerce in riverside grassland cities to build the Temple of the Hand to make the city more defensible. #Hell Terrain is hidden under the Snow. It will still crawl and spread under your Ice cover, but will have no effect on your cities with Temple of The Hand. You will notice its presence because food resources will convert to Hellish version. You may use this to counter high AC, while still obtainin Sheat Stone. #Abashi, the Sheaim dragon, can be build directly as Divne Essence is researched. Eurabatres the Gold Dragon works the same ways for Kuriotates. The Illians have another rquirement: to make Drifa the White Dragon appear requires you to have destroyed at least one civilization and then complete the ritual Stir from Slumber. Remember all the dragons do not get Hero promotion. #The White Hand ritual spawn three Priests of Winter, 5+2 Cold Disciple units. Like the Giants of the Pact of the Nillion, they are limited to 3 and may not be rebuilt if lost. They're like regular priests except they get arcane ice spells instead of divine spells. Notice that as a side consequence, they will not learn new spells automatically as Priest, they have to use a promotion. #The 3 pirests may be regularly upgraded to High Priest, 6+2 Cold units with Channeling III, so they gain access to Blizzard. It is similar to Snowfall, the Ice III spell of the Archmage, but in stronger version. #Illians have few means to cure troops because they are not able to build disciple units. Apart from the 3 Priests of Winter, and the lone disciple you may obtain from a goody hut, it may be useful to have Spirit Mana to cast Courage, a Tier I spell that gives +10% heal rate. #Ice Mana is a peculiarity of Illians, but other civilization may get it by controlling Lentus Frigus. Elohim can get it if they conquer an Illian city, and then build the palace in this city. # Lentus Frigu is the ancient throne of Mulcarn, God of Winter, and the place where he entered Erebus the first time, and a small piece of his vault that remains in this world. It gives the Illians the Aggressive trait and to the Amurites a golden age. # Illians traits are bonded to Auric, and are lost if Auric avatar is killed. Charismatic give +1 Happy in all cities, -25% XP needed for each unit level, +2 "Your charming" bonus diplomatically. Defender gives Homeland promotion: +10% Withdrawal Chance and +10% within own borders. Agnostic prevent adoptin a Religion and Religious tech. If Illians controls Lentus Frigu they gets the Aggressive trait with free Combat I promotion. # Illian assassins can use the Whiteout ability to gain Hidden Nationality while in an Ice tile. Illian Winter Rituals :Peculiar to the Illian civilization are the Ritual of the Winter, that aim to a new Ice Age under the dominance of the new god, Auric. They have to be completed in sequence. :#Samhain: spawns Mokka and his Frostlings - under control of the barbarians. Tehy will attack also the Illians. Construction cost of 200 . :#The White Hand: spawn three Priests of Winter - under control of the Illians. Requires Philiosphy and costs 400 . :#The Deepening: the entire world will be cooled down. Ice tiles and Blizzard will appear in all the World, and slowly will recede. Some grassland will convert to plains and plains to Tundras. Requires Priesthood and costs 600 . :#The Draw: Illian will pay a high price: the empire will be at war with everybody, Illian cities will lose half the population, units will lose half their health. Requires Strength of Will and costs 900 .It increases the Armageddon Counter by 10 when completed. :#Ascension: Auric Ulvin will ascend to godhood and will lead the Illian army, but the stronger enemy civiliaztion will gain the mean to stop him (Godslayer). Requires Strength of Will and costs 1200 . Auric Ascended will be the next God of Winter, succeeding Mulcarn. Auric Ascended can only be summoned once the Illian winter rituals the Draw and Ascension have been completed. He has 30 base strength, plus 30 Cold strength, as well as Greater Snowfall spell which increases the spell's range to +2 and makes it possible to kill enemy units outright. Auric is very powerful, but he will die if he ever fights a unit wielding the Godslayer; even if he defeats that unit, he will die afterwards. Considerations The Illians are probably the worst builder civ in the game due to their inability to take a religion. Low happiness combined with no commerce bonus from Ice rivers causes the mighty Aristofarms to slide towards the break even point with cottages. They're a rush civ. Stasis gives them 20 turns advantage and they have a lot of early/mid game advantages to turn into an army. Enchantment/Charismatic is important (production, +20% for melee units), Winter Priests are essential (Tier2.5 unit available at early Tier 2). You're obligated to use these advantages to get a bigger empire than everyone. If you can find Letum Frigus then Shock promoted Horse Archers can quickly promote to Combat 5, otherwise a conventional Axemen/Catapult with sacrifical Ice Elementals does excellently. Their midgame is bad. No religious heroes and Wilboman is terrible. He is worse than a Champion of the same XP vs. another Champion. Strategy The Illian race is at the core of the game's story. Fall From Heaven II takes place after a long, magically-enforced ice age with all civilizations attempting to rebuild their former empires--that is, all civilizations except for the Illians. For the Illians the ice age was what composed their glory days. They thrived in the snow and ice and they plan to restore and revert the world back to the Ice Age by reviving and summoning their God back into creation. This goal will eventually pit the Illian player against all other players in the game: if you ever come close to reaching your goal of summoning Auric Ascended into the game, by constructing The Draw (a prerequiste Ritual), you will automatically declare war on all civilizations in the game, and cannot make peace or have any diplomacy for the rest of the game. This tends to make playing the Illians an interesting experience. The first thing you will notice when playing the Illians is that they have access to Ice Mana via their Palace mana. Although the Slow spell (obtained from Ice I) isn't particular great, it is comparable to Blinding Light (Sun II), and you get it earlier. Summon Ice Elemental (obtained from Ice II) is quite a decent summon for a Channeling II spell for both invading and attacking. However, the reason why Ice Mana shines is found in Ice III, which allows an Archmage to cast Blizzard, which does 20-80% damage to all units within 2 tiles (and transforms those tiles to Ice, which gives Illian units a bonus due to the Winterborn promotion). This spell is possibly the most potent spell available to multiple units in the game, due to the high damage cap and the huge range. Illian cities are unique in that they treat Ice tiles as grassland--that is, a worked Ice tile provides 2 like a Grassland tile. Several things to note about this: By building the Temple of the Hand (a unique building for the Illians that replace the Pagan Temple), you can transform all tiles within radius 2 of the city to Ice, so you can settle cities anywhere (e.g. Desert) and transform those cities into Ice tiles that act as Grassland tiles for the Illian RaceSince only you can get a benefit from Ice tiles, transforming your cities' land into Ice can discourage enemy conquests, as a captured Illian city on Ice produces no food and will quickly starve as your opponents cannot gain the 2/Ice tile.However, there is a tradeoff with the second point (above): Grassland tiles normally give an extra +1 when adjacent to a River. However, Ice tiles do not give this extra bonus--this forces you to consider carefully if it is worth the loss in commerce in riverside grassland cities to build the Temple of the Hand to make the city more defensible. Although the Illians' hero unit, Wilboman, doesn't come until Iron Working, the true strength of the Illians appears once you have constructed The White Hand Ritual, which summons the three Priests of Winter into the city that builds it. These are exceptional Channeling II units that can learn to cast Ice I and Ice II spells, and can become the spearpoint of an invading force. However, take care to keep your Priests safe, as you cannot build any more and upgrading them is the only way to obtain your Channeling III Disciple units to cast Blizzard. Illians are one of the game's villains, and therefore best way to win the game is to simply eliminate everyone else. This goes well with the Illians, because upon destroying a civilization, the Illians can build the Stir from Slumber ritul, granting them Drifa the White Dragon (provided they have researched Divine Essence), which is a 14+7 Ice strength Dragon. Once the Draw and Ascension is complete, you gain access to Auric Ascended, which is a 60 strength flying unit that can singlehandedly win the game. However, upon gaining Auric, watch out for the civilization highest in score that isn't the Illians: they will be awarded the Godslayer equipment, which, when equipped on any unit that fights Auric, auto-kills Auric. If Auric Ascended is slain in combat, the Illian player will lose all of his leader traits due to the death of the leader. Information Leaders :* Auric Ulvin :* Mulcarn (old FfH version 1) World Spell :* Stasis Category:Civilizations